Archives for August 2013

When I talk about, or write about entities, it’s normally in the context of specific people, places, or things. Google was granted a patent recently which discusses a different type of entity, in a more narrow manner. These entities are referred to as “search entities”, and the patent uses them to predict probabilities and understand the relationship between them better. This kind of analysis might result in some pages ranking higher than they otherwise might because of their similarities to other sites, and in some sets of search results favoring fresher results as well.

But I’m a substitute for another guy
I look pretty tall but my heels are high
The simple things you see are all complicated
I look pretty young, but I’m just backdated, yeah

– Peter Townsend

When you search at Google, how easy is it to find what you’re looking for? Do you search again, but try different but related words if your first attempt doesn’t uncover pages that you find useful?

If I search for “car repair” and follow it up on a search for “auto repair,” I would suspect that I would see a lot of the same pages, but perhaps not in the same order. I would also expect to see local search results for both, and I do. The local search results aren’t in the exact same order either. Some words or phrases do make good substitutes for others though, as can be seen in the image below:

Google published a patent application this week that details the user card interface Google is using for applications such as Google Now. The “invention” described in the patent enables people to share the things they want to experience, or experiences that they have gone through. The patent filing is a detailed walkthrough of how a data card interface might work, but it also details a set of social features that are unique and may be engaging enough to be adopted by a wide range of people.

See someone behaving abnormally at a nearby wharf? Share it on an experience card with others who might be within your circles, with an even broader audience, or even the public. Have a desire to eat a gourmet meal and imbibe a bottle of wine in a cafe in Paris? Post the experience, and share it with others.